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The China Policy Institute is a research centre based at the University of Nottingham focusing on all aspects of contemporary China, Taiwan and China’s global engagement. The China Policy Institute does not privilege political positions and the views published in Analysis are those of the author and not the institute.

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China Policy Institute
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The University of Nottingham
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China’s Perspective on the ADIZ: Backfire or Signal Flare?

China’s recent move to establish the East China Sea Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) is widely considered negative and seen by some commentators as having backfired, especially when the U.S. sent B-52 bombers to touch upon the edge of China’s ADIZ.

Such a development was hardly unexpected by Beijing. It would be against common sense to believe that China, when planning the ADIZ, was hoping that Japan or the U.S. would welcome it, and only realised its dilemma between harsh and mild monitoring of the ADIZ later. In fact, during public discussions preceding the establishment of the ADIZ, Chinese experts already expressed their concerns on two levels: first, whether the Chinese Air Force would be able to monitor the ADIZ effectively, and second, whether it was necessary to do so. Even though these opinions, interestingly, are not easy to find online after the official announcement of the ADIZ, it would be unfair to suppose that the Chinese government did not take possible scenarios into consideration before the policy decision was made. Thus, it isn’t difficult to notice that what China presents is a carefully designed “moderate version” of ADIZ, one with flexible interpretation which allows China to react at various levels according to its own perception of the situations. This is consistent with Chinese governmental rhetoric and its moderate reactions to recent challenges. Rather than a “paper tiger”, China’s ADIZ should be more properly seen as a “barking dog”, for it is more of a diplomatic posture to show China’s determination, than a military arrangement to display its muscle.

Chinese experts, endorsing the official statements, have been emphasizing four points about the ADIZ. First, China’s ADIZ is legal and in accordance with international practice. Second, China’s ADIZ is legitimate because it is responsive rather than provocative. From a Chinese perspective, it was Japan that first tried to change the status quo in East China Sea and China has only been reacting in a legitimate way. The establishment of China’s ADIZ, too, is not unprecedented as many other countries, including Japan and the U.S., have established their own long time ago and have been using it in support of their diplomatic statements. Third, China has the ability to defend itself, and doesn’t give up its right to employ military means when necessary. Last but not least, the establishment of ADIZ doesn’t deviate from China’s road of peaceful development, and won’t become the prelude of a war between China and Japan or the U.S. According to the Chinese interpretation the ADIZ will serve as a buffer between concerned parties and thus contribute to regional stability. While the first point has been echoed by most international observers and the second remains arguable yet understandable to many, the third and fourth points seem contradicting and hard to buy, as they always are. If China’s establishment of the ADIZ conveys no new message than adding to doubts about China’s peaceful development strategy and worries about China’s military aggrandizement, why did it not backfire?

Being aware of existing tensions in the region and possible responses to its action, China announced its ADIZ not only to sound out concerned parties, but also to consolidate its bottom line and shift its diplomatic burden of crisis management.

China’s ADIZ was not intended to test the concerned parties’ bottom line. Rather, China clearly understands that no country intends to escalate tensions and start a war—this is exactly why China didn’t hesitate too much to make a move that would definitely be criticized by the international community, no matter how justifiable it is. In the meantime, China doesn’t seem able to precisely map out other countries’ strategies, especially when it comes to domestic factors that influence foreign policies in Japan and the U.S., and the interaction between the two countries. The Chinese public, heavily influence by the mass media, tend to pay attention to Japanese and U.S. moves that are hostile to China; Chinese elite, though more likely to be aware of the complexity of relevant issues, can’t do anything to change, for those are difficult problems even for Japanese and American politicians themselves. Diplomatic incidents, including the Tokyo government’s intended purchase and ensuing Japanese nationalization of the disputed islands, and ambiguous and sometimes conflicting stances expressed by various U.S. governmental branches and representatives, confuse Chinese observers about concerned parties’ short-term plans. While trying to analyse these, China has to make sure its stances are articulated and consolidated.

On the other hand, China seems to have discovered a new pattern to respond to Japanese provocations that is more convenient than the previous one. In the decades since the normalization of Sino-Japan relationship in the 1970s, the Chinese government has responded to Japanese unfriendly moves, including rightist historical textbooks and visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, mainly with diplomatic rhetoric. It has proved to be an effective way of tension management, as the two countries generally maintain bilateral relations in spite of fluctuations. From a Chinese perspective, however, Japan might take this as Chinese acquiescence of certain moves and continue to provoke, while China has not many choices other than diplomatic denouncement. In 2012, however, when China perceived Japan as attempting to change the status quo unilaterally by nationalizing the disputed islands, it reacted by sending surveillance ships to maintain the status of dispute, and Japan was left with not many choices—as Japan doesn’t want to worsen the situation either. To simplify the case, it might give China the impression that it is more convenient to make symbolic moves first than to denounce later, for the early actor has relatively greater space to maneuver, and the latter is always faced with more pressure of crisis management. After all, crisis management is not an enjoyable task for China, a late comer to the international system without mature diplomatic skills. By the same token, China’s ADIZ, as a diplomatic signal flare, doesn’t result in substantial changes in a military sense, but gained China the advantage of acting first. When Abe started the crisis management mechanism and Japanese media were busy interpreting responses of concerned parties, what China did was to repeat its well-grounded interpretation of the ADIZ statements. If China’s nationalism is to be taken into consideration, it is convenient in a different sense for the Chinese government to take a seemingly hawkish position.

China’s establishment of its own ADIZ generally served the diplomatic purpose of consolidating China’s bottom line concerning territorial and sovereign issues, and shift the crisis management burden at the same time. Yet it is dangerous if China, or any other country, takes it as convenient to add another straw to the camel’s back. Even the Chinese public, usually seen as increasingly nationalist, are rationally aware of this. As a somehow ignored part of a widely cited survey conducted by the Global Times, 50.1% respondents expressed their concern about the rising possibility of conflicts resulting from China’s ADIZ. Crisis is by definition unpredictable and no country can manage it alone, and the camel’s back may be broken at any moment without any country realizing what the last straw was.

Huang Wei is a PhD candidate at King’s College London and visiting scholar at Renmin University of China.

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6 Comments

“What China presents is a carefully designed “moderate version” of ADIZ.”

The reader can see the excellent piece by Mr Thim in this blog on why this is not the case:

“Establishment of ADIZ is not a provocative step in itself, yet Beijing imposed the ADIZ abruptly on its neighbours and the U.S. as a major stakeholder without any prior consultation. Moreover, China’s new ADIZ goes beyond the usual practice when it applies the rules on all aircrafts, civilian or state (military, law enforcement, etc.), no matter whether they are approaching China’s sovereign air space or merely passing through the area with final destination other than China. While in the case of the former ADIZ rules are reasonable and widely exercised, in the case of the latter Chinese demands go against the principle that waters and air space outside of the territorial domain are free to access by any state. Chinese proposition, highly problematic in terms of international law standards, is perfectly consistent with Beijing’s assertion about maritime Exclusive Economic Zones, i.e. that these are areas within which outsiders have to ask for permissions if they intend to conduct activities such as military exercises, reconnaissance, surveillance or training missions. While it is reasonable that Beijing is not overly excited with the U.S. military activities in close proximity to Chinese coast, these are not illegal and Beijing does not do its case good service by pursuing far-fetched interpretations of respective international treaties.”

A series of unlikely miscalculations is EXACTLY how a lot of wars start especially when one of the parties is regarded as doing anything to avoid combat.
In this case China is comfortable that Japan is going to get treated like Israel, and they can sign an agreement with Obama which leaves them alone and with few options.

To see through this cloud of verbiage, a simple question is enough: Which country in Asia is trying to expand into all the countries it adjoins and annex parts of them? Every country with a border with China is experiencing aggression. Peaceful democracies are absolutely no danger to China, and the Communist Party knows this. This “defense zone” is an offense zone, serving a Communist Party desire to focus the anger of its people offshore, instead of at the rulers in Beijing.

This blog is an awfully long-winded apology for another act of aggressive behaviour around various maritime zones on China’s border. There has been some suggestion that this ADIZ is only one of several that China will promulgate. The big sleeper in all this is the South China Sea. That will be messy and potentially a lot more confrontational.

How can writers like Huang Wei keep saying that “Japan unilaterally tried to change the status quo”?! That is disinformation of the most severe kind. Either that or Mr Wei just does not have a concept of the diversity of political actors in democratic countries.

The Japanese national purchase of the three islands in question was a direct consequence of the original owners intent to sell his property to Shintaro Ishihara in his role as the governor of Tokyo, and an ultra-nationalist, essentially a fascist. I leave it open to everybody reasonably informed on the issue, how that individual would have utilized these islands in his political campaign against China. Its a plain fact at the end of the day, that the Federal government owning these islands was the least terrible choice under such circumstances and that it was a response, rather than a “unilateral” decision to change the existing order of things.

if the islands are claimed by China, how can Japanese government buy them? Buying them means owning them, and that does not challenge but negates China’s claim of sovereignty over the islands. That is why that act was changing the status quo most directly. Unilaterally does not have anything to do with understanding the concept of the diversity of actors in democratic countries ( of course, we’ll allways try to make the point about our glorious democracy when we discuss anything about China, won’t we?), but to the bilateral relationship betwen China and Japan. unilaterally means without the consent from the other side, that is China.

To the general topic of the article, I don’t think it is wise to add fuel to the fire at the moment, even if I understand China’s wish to underline her commitment to the territorial and sovereignty claims. But even more worrying is the securitization of rising China that goes on as intensely as ever. Commentators here and elsewhere all invoke an ethos of partnerhsip, respect for international law, commitment to peace and serenity in East Asia and the World that Agressive China apparently betrays with her irresponsible neoimperialist behaviour. Well, that is not how the things work and there are hunders of examples all around the globe just in the recent years that make it obvious that it is all hard-core immoral realist politics out there, with other great and not so great powers leading the way. Concerning China – japanese adiz, intrusion of us planes, drones and vessels into China’s territory, us arms and defense deals in the region and so on and so on – and why not invoke the principles of partnership, cooperation and international law then? This episode should be placed in the context of agressive american pivot to Asia and China’s is merely a reaction.